AWS CodeBuild Now Supports .NET Core 2.0 Builds on Windows

AWS said it would like to even further broaden the service's reach to include .NET Framework support, but Microsoft isn't cooperating.

CodeBuild is designed to free developers from worrying about provisioning, managing and scaling their own build servers by providing ready-to-deploy software packages for building and testing code on popular platforms. Those platform choices now include Windows Server.

Last July, Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) announced CodeBuild would support .NET Core, Microsoft's reinvention of the .NET Framework as a general-purpose, open source, cross-platform development choice.

However, that support was for Linux-based development only.

"AWS CodeBuild provides prepackaged build environments for many supported frameworks to make it easier to get started," AWS said in a blog post last Friday (May 25). "You can now select a prepackaged .NET Core for Windows build environment to have CodeBuild build your code. If your application uses the .NET Framework, you can include the Microsoft proprietary Framework Class Libraries in a custom Docker image."

Specifically, CodeBuild now includes a prepackaged build environment for .NET Core 2.0 on Windows Server.

In a FAQ, AWS said it would like to expand its support to include Microsoft .NET Framework -- the older, traditional Windows-based .NET implementation -- but Microsoft apparently doesn't seem interested in that idea.

"We would like to provide a preconfigured build environment for Microsoft .NET Framework customers, many of whom already have a license to use the Microsoft proprietary libraries," AWS says. "However, Microsoft has been unwilling to work with us in addressing these customer requests at this time."

AWS said there is a workaround for that expanded support, however: "You can customize your environment yourself to support other build targets, such as .NET Framework, by creating a Docker image and uploading it to the Amazon EC2 Container Registry or the Docker Hub registry. You can then reference this custom image in your build project."

Interested developers can consult code samples for using .NET Core for Windows on CodeBuild.

The samples use CodeBuild running Microsoft Windows Server 2016, the Microsoft .NET Framework and the .NET Core SDK to guide developers through the building of executables file with code written in C#, F# and Visual Basic.